Writers in Community by Rebecca Seaton

                           Writers in Community by Rebecca Seaton

                                                 Some of the East London ACW group

    Writing can feel a lonely task but over the years, I have discovered plenty of opportunities to find and develop community. The obvious one is ACW: I can’t remember exactly how many years it is now since I’ve joined. For a long time I was happy interacting at a local level before taking the plunge and going to conferences. As a teacher, I’ve also belonged to different school communities. Then there’s the local area itself. I wasn’t born here, but have lived and taught here for almost twenty-five years now, go to church and have, to my great surprise, become a small part of the local traders’ community. My local and writing worlds coincided when I became part of the Pen to Print story and through that, part of the Write on! magazine family. One community seems to bleed into another once you start!

 

Love in the Library: A Community Event

    Why engage with these different communities? God call us to be part of the body and calls us to be in the world. As part of a community, we can offer a model of positive shared life while being humble enough to learn from others. I find encouragement at church and in my writing groups, I can trust the people there to give me a genuine opinion and know that they care enough to see me develop. Sharing my own expertise and encouragement is also good, even if I am sometimes surprised to be able to offer it! However, I believe it’s important to serve others and accept being served and would expect both of these to happen in any tight-knit community. Specific knowledge can also be something that you only find in certain communities: becoming a regular at a local fayre gave me the confidence to do a stint at a table-top sale. I find that I’m up-to-date on local events in a way that I wasn’t before. It also helps that I live in the same community where I teach and worship, so I know what people in the same community are dealing with, even if I don’t experience all of it directly. Community and belonging are common themes in my writing and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. The best way to write convincing communities is to live in one…or some! Most of all, they’re fun: I’ve met some great people and done things I never would without the encouragement of those around me.  

 

As human beings, we’re drawn to connect so consider your communities in and beyond writing to widen your writing world.

 

#amwriting #amwritingfantasy #ACW     

 

Rebecca earned second place in the 2017-18 Pen to Print Book Challenge with her first novel, A Silent Song. She is currently working on a fantasy trilogy involving a prophet, a dodgy queen and a powerful relic.